Noteworthy: 12/20/2013

Nice Job:
Throwback game for Paul Pierce with 24 points, 10 rebounds, on 7 of 9 shooting with 4 three-pointers, but it was spoiled by Evan Turner's 29 and 10, including the game winnner...Great road win for the Raptors in Dallas, as all five of their starters scored 15 or more points.  Despite the overtime loss, good game for Monta Ellis as he had his 2nd 20+ point 10+ assist game this season (in his career he has 21 of these type games). Pau put together a really nice night of 21 points 13 rebounds and 8 assists for the Lakers in their home win against the pretty good T'wolves. So basically, take your time Steve(s) and Kobe. Pau's got things perfectly under control.

Richard Jefferson showing that you still shouldn't give him the baseline and Brandon Knight had a really neat all-around game with 17 points 14 rebounds 8 assists and 0 turnovers.  Can't forget about their other lanky Bucks teammate, John Henson, who threw down a really snappy putback dunk. Kyrie Irving had a huge scoring night of 39 points as did Kemba Walker with a season high of 34 points as both the Cavs and the Bobcats won beating the Bucks and Pistons. Demarcus Cousins led all scorers in the Kings/Heat game with 27 but the Kings lost by 19 so he probably wasn't shaking hands with anybody still.

Ball Fake of the Night:


Return:
Danny Granger played for the first time this season and he did look a bit rusty with those 5 turnovers.  However, he did have a nice block on Dwight Howard.

On the subject of blocks, Gordon Hayward's hustle on this Demare Carroll fast break layup is a little Tayshaun Prince-ish or maybe just very Gordan Hayward-ish.  Either way, dejavu.

Not the Worst Attempt At Taking A Charge:



Not bad because what else could you do if Lebron comes barreling down the lane at you? Definitely an addition to Ben's Mclemore's library of "Welcome to the NBA" moments categorized under "dangit".

Bummer
Gerald "Gets his lips to the rim" Green took 12 shots tonight all of which were threes.  He made six of those shots which is a really impressive amount of three-pointers made but that stat also means there were no dunks to report on.  Hence, the bummer subtitle.

Cheerful
In the first game of the season without Kobe since his return from achilles injury, the Lakers looked like they were having a lot of fun on the court.  It didn't even look like they had lost their superstar shooting guard or their first-second-and third string point guards this season.

First a block by their gimpy backup-center which led to a dunk by the streaky but really good at dunking, Wesley Johnson


Now the T'wolves were the team to draft Wes Johnson so maybe tonight was a bit personal for him cause then he also brought Staples to their feet with this long jump dunk too.

Nick Young whose big smile is currently the banner on this blog, led the way for the Lakers with 25 points.  As a review, some were really far three-point shots and one of them was™ this 360 spin on his follow through of a 4-point play opportunity.



Not to be left out, Pau also hit a pretty miraculous three tonight, which was the reason for the cute celebration between Nick and Pau that you can see at the head of this post.